The Tingling Feeling of Love
by The Kerl
Summary: Missing scene from "Running Ghost," where Sully is temporarily paralyzed. An explanation of why Dr. Mike did not continue to massage him herself.


**I'm a sucker for awkward moments and side-glances. This is why I enjoy **_**The Office**_** so much. Anyways, when I was re-watching **_**Dr. Quinn**_**, this episode jumped out at me. Thinking about the fact that Sully was basically imprisoned inside of his old house, some serious touching was going on (and then suddenly Matthew was taking care of SUlly), and the only verbal comments that testified to this were some awkward coughs, well, I had to write this.**

**Enjoy :D**

**The Kerl~**

"Dr. Mike—do we really need to keep doin' this?"

_No_, she thought, _not unless you want to walk again_. Sully had become more and more insistent on cutting down the treatments—he just wanted to get up and go. He didn't seem to comprehend that the treatments were the only thing that would help him to get back on his own as quickly as he wanted to.

"Sully, no one wants to see you get better more than I do, but you really need to cooperate in order for that to happen." She turned away from him and began gathering ingredients to prepare the salve.

Her back to him, Sully's mouth turned down in a grimace. _Cooperate?_ How on earth did she expect him to do that when he was currently in the worst possible situation he could think of? _Cooperate?_ No. There he was—cooped up indoors and entirely reliant upon another human being. He couldn't even get outside to pee on his own. Two weeks trapped in his old home, trapped in the bed his wife and child had _died_ in. And to make matters even worse, he had to endure this hour of torture every day.

Her face set, Michaela brought the bowl of paste to rest beside Sully on the bed. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can leave for the clinic and you can brood on your own." Sully made a face. "Lie down."

He knew that he was acting like a petulant child, but she didn't understand what this was doing to him! Deciding to get it over with, Sully forced his body to scoot further under the covers until his head lay flat on a pillow. Michaela bit back a smile and pulled the bottom of the sheets up to reveal the tops of his thighs. She tucked the folds securely around him to keep him decent. He gave a dry snort at her mild concern, but she ignored him.

What else could she do? She scooped a handful of the strong-smelling green goop from the bowl and methodically spread it over his legs. She sniffed as the familiar tingling sensation spread from her fingertips to her palms. The first time she'd tried this she'd been unsure of what caused the tingling—the paste or the fact that she was touching Sully so intimately. _Which is horrible for me to think at a time like this. For Heaven's sake, I'm his doctor._

Luckily for her it was the paste.

Sully, however, felt differently. "That stuff sure smells funny."

"It feels funny, too."

"Does it?" he asked darkly. "Wouldn't know."

_That's it_. She grabbed another handful of the stuff, and, abandoning work on his legs, pulled back the top of the bedsheet to expose Sully's bare chest. Had it not been so badly bruised, the sight probably would have distracted her. As it was, Sully was fighting to cover himself and she had to act quickly. Unable to stop his half-hearted flailing, Michaela barely managed to slap the goo onto his abdomen. He hissed and flinched away at the contact. "Make sure to rub that around really good or else it won't help." She went back to work on his right left leg, massaging his toes with a little more force than necessary.

"Wha'dya do that for?" he whined. He hesitated before gingerly spreading the foul paste over his tender ribs. "Is it s'posed to sting like this?"

She moved her hands up his leg. "Yes. Yes it is."

"Well it hurts."

"Only because you've been favoring your side." She set to work on his thigh, trying to concentrate more on the conversation than on his toned muscles. Or the way those muscles felt beneath her fingers.

He was too distracted to notice the way her face flushed. "I ain't been favorin' it anymore than I normally do."

"No, but it is still sore and weak from disuse." Of course she was right, but he wasn't going to tell her that. "Anyway, the stinging is good. It will help you heal faster."

"How's that?"

She crossed the foot of the bed to begin work on his left leg. "Well, the roots that Cloud Dancing has been bringing release chemicals that—that act like smelling salts. For your muscles." She chanced a peek at his face, which was contorted in a funny combination of interest, disgust, pain, and confusion. "Smelling salts are so strong that they overpower your sense of smell and send signals to the rest of your body so you can move away from them. It's like a nasal assault. This paste follows the same principal, but it assaults your sense of touch to stimulate the blood flow." She continued talking to distract herself from her ministrations. Sully was also grateful for the distraction. His blood was certainly flowing. "The effect is similar to what happens after you burn yourself. The throbbing sensation you feel is your blood pumping past the injured area to cool it down and provide the damaged skin more oxygen for repair. Instead of actually harming you, the paste gives the skin a unique enough sensation to get the blood pumping, which in turn gets more blood to the muscles in your legs and helps keep them strong and healthy. Alright, turn over, please."

Sully did as he was told, for once grateful for the strong smell of the paste. Focusing on the smell helped keep him from thinking about the fact that he was being forced to lie face-down in his old bed. The bed he had shared with Abigail. The bed she had died in.

The bed that now smelled so much like _Michaela_. Usually he did his best to think of her only as his friend…as Dr. Mike. But during his treatments, with his face pressed into the pillow she used every night, he couldn't help but think of the fact that _Michaela_ slept here. Alone. In his old bed. He could smell her in the linens, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that yet. Part of him knew that he should feel sorry that his wife's scent no longer stayed in the place. It had been so long that he couldn't remember what she smelled like.

Then there was the part of him that decided that there was no scent more appealing to him than _Michaela's_. More than once he'd entertained the foolish idea of crawling out into the barn after she left for the day in order to escape it. He was too afraid that he would grow accustomed to her scent around him.

He tried to prop himself up on his elbows so he could reach the clean air better. Looking over his shoulder, Sully caught sight of Michaela working on his right calf. It frustrated him beyond belief that she repeatedly did this for him and he couldn't even feel it. _What's the point?_ He needed another distraction. His hands tingled. "So, this stuff'll help my side heal faster?"

"It should, but it is mainly for your legs. Keeping the blood flowing will keep them strong, so…"

He opened his mouth to make some snarky comment about how useful his strong legs would be if he couldn't move them when he noticed that something felt…odd. "Dr. Mike? 'S this paste s'posed to make you feel numb?" He turned around to see her reaction, but his mind went blank when he saw just what her hands were doing. His jaw dropped open.

She was moving her hands up and down his thigh, using her thumbs to work deep into the muscle. How long had she been doing that for? "If you leave it on long enough, yes. For instance," she held up her hands to him, "I can't feel my hands after I finish working on your legs."

He cleared his throat. "Can't feel your hands?"

"Nope. They're completely numb."

"Uhh…so what you're sayin' is that my legs should feel numb right now?"

"That's right." She reached for a towel on the table and began wiping her hands. "I'll be right back with some warm water for you to wash."

As soon as she was outside he rolled over onto his back and struggled up into a sitting position, making sure the sheet covered him as much as possible. _This is ridiculous_, he thought. He'd heard of something in the army camps, where amputees would feel pain in a hand they no longer had. That had to be what this was. He was just feeling the tingling in his legs because he saw her hands there, and he'd wanted to feel it. And if the phantom tingling he felt elsewhere below his waist was anything to go by, well… _But that's not right—why would I have wanted to feel that?_ Sure she was attractive and brave and kind and…well, someone who didn't consider him a freak of nature, but those weren't reasons for him to enjoy her touch so much.

Were they?

Maybe he really _had_ felt the tingling because he was truly healing like Dr. Mike said he would. He shook his head. That was a dangerous thought – it wouldn't do him any good getting his hopes up. Besides, how was he supposed to explain to her that he suspected the salve was working because he was tenting her sheets? "It has to be the damn salve. She said it's supposed to help the blood flow." Unbidden, thoughts of Dr. Mike rubbing the salve on more than his legs flew into his mind, and in his current state there was no way _not_ to think about them.

Over the flow of water from the pump, Michaela heard a muffled growl coming from inside the house. She shook her head in frustration. "The sooner I get him out of here, the better." Sully was probably the worst patient she'd ever worked with. She cast an accusatory glance at her throbbing hands. "And every time I touch him, my hands tingle for an hour afterwards! That's it! Matthew is going to help him from now on."


End file.
